All that lives in your ready-to-eat food

Do you know where your food comes from? Pic: Anurag Gumbhar

How safe are the products at the supermarkets?
When I pick  over-packed foods at the supermarket, I recall the way my mother would judge each product carefully when local stores were more in vogue.   Today, as working mothers who don’t have time to cook, employees staying away from home or students who  are hostile towards hostel food, all of us rejoice in these ready-to–eat and ready-to– cook food products.  These may very well come to the rescue of busy lives but could be costing us our health in the long term.
We might check the labels, manufacturing date, best before date before purchase etc of perishable foods. But no matter how much we scrutinize the food, all foods –  be it the energy drink or milk bread, juice or vegetables –  all bear frightening facts, right from processing to your plate.
Ready-to-cook packaged foods such as dosa, panneer, idlis, french fries and chicken cutlets contain high amounts of salt and saturated fats. These items are factory treated with chemicals and kept under high temperatures. Do you know how the following common food items are stored and processed?
Meat: How do we judge the meat sold in packets? We would look for the red colour in the meat and of course, the label that says ‘will last longer.’
We will have to get down to basics to understand how fresh the packaged meat is. Sea food  such as fish fingers and prawns have travelled miles first by boat and then to packing industries where they are slaughtered, frozen, de-frosted and re-frozen by the time they reach the shelf in a supermarket.
The red colour in the chicken or mutton is preserved to gain customer satisfaction with high technology or chemicals. Sodium and potassium salts are added to prevent bacterial growth. They are never made available for sale immediately a day after slaughter and the packets are kept for nine days or longer before sale.
Milk: The most prominent in food consumption in every household are dairy products- Milk, Ghee, Curd, Cheese and Butter. There has been many hassles about the adulteration of milk in the conventional packet milk that the milkman delivers daily. What about supermarkets?
The tetra packets that contain milk  are processed using synthetics and other industrial methods. The milk powders are adulterated with detergent, bleaching powder or toxic substances. Unfortunately there is no recommendable solution to escape from this vicious cycle.
Eggs: They have a different stale story. The neatly packed eggs are usually not  brought within seven days of laying into the supermarket. Experts say that eggs which are above seven days old would become more liquid and lose taste. It’s apparently impossible to buy fresh eggs because the supermarkets do not print the laying date on the packets.
Juice: These come as syrups and are sold as concentrates. They are pasturised with heat and said to last for as long as six months to one year. Originally they may have a shelf life of eight days.
Fruits:   The dew drop fresh look from oranges and lemons is deceptive as it is coated with a thin layer of wax to preserve the outer appearance which we customers look for. Even vegetables are not spared. They are either coloured or pesticide treated as they have to travel long distances from farm to supermarket. Apples would have travelled for at least  three months by the time of consumption. The plastic covers in which they are packed sometimes save the fruits from staling.
Bread:This is baked using enzymes or acids and it takes two days to get to the market. The best before date would just be a nominal one as they are well tempered to uphold the softness.
Bisphenol A (BPA) It is a compound which is used to make water bottles, baby feeding bottles, plastics and packing paper. It is used in coatings of tins and cans to avoid the food to come in direct contact with the metal. All the read-to-eat food packets, frozen foods like meat and cheese, fruits, juice, veggies are all packed with materials made out of this.

The artificial food is  sugar treated and contains saturated and trans fats which increase  cholesterol levels.   Adding to these impairments are the perils posed by Bisphenol A which is a substance that alters the functioning of natural hormones, interfere with their production and secretion.
We can’t initiate a purchase unless it is labeled ‘BPA free’.
Today the food packing industry churns a turnover of $15 billion and is projected to earn $30 billion by 2015.
Owing to the growing supermarket culture, obesity is an alarming disease among Indians addicted to packaged food and we are advancing towards becoming a diabetic country. It has been realized through a survey that 82% of urban Indians are vulnerable to chronic diseases due to canned food.
The Ministry of food processing in India passed the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006, according to which all the supermarkets selling packed food should meet certain thresholds set by them. Most companies do not adhere to the standards and violate threshold limits in percentage composition such as the percentage of Bisphenol A and various salts used.
In my personal opinion, limiting consumption of canned food and avoiding buying food which is unpackaged is not always possible or convenient. But these do signify industrial involvement and all that comes with it. Maybe a mix of purchasing a few items from the small retail shops and vendors would be a good mix.